Reading Marx

Term:
Fall 2011

Subject Code:
GPHI

Course Number:
6654

The present crisis of capitalism should firmly lay to rest the idea that Marx's critique of political economy is dspass. Yet how exactly are Marxian ideas relevant to contemporary developments? Which ideas (exploitation? alienation? primitive accumulation? commodity fetishism? class struggle? communism?) remain valid, and which need to be reconstructed? How might Marx's thought be brought into fruitful relation which other strands of critical theorizing, such as feminism, postcolonialism, focauldianism, anarchism, and ecological thought? In this seminar, we seek to address these and related questions by close study of Marx's key writings, especially Das Kapital, the Grundrisse, and The Eighteenth Brumaire.